The Ultimate Guide to Bone Knights!

[M.J.]

Originally Posted by Ivory [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

bone knights are at the very top! At least in classic....

......

The end

There is what was missing from the last post.

I just don't see this method working well on 44+ mobs or doing sustained dps better than a dot using necro once splurt is part of rotations, and unlike shamans spell swapping mid battle is something necros can do if they want to stack lower level dots. So your endgame spell lineup won't be as streamlined as say a shaman with torpor if you're truly trying to get your best DPS, and it will involve some spell scribing.

Years and years ago during endless Kunark I played around on a GM command server and did the whole Rod of Annihilation + Flayed Skin on a human necro, and my goal was to use the shield spells to take zero damage while dishing out melee damage, long story short I too had to use taps just to survive the ravishing drolvargs in DL where I was testing. Maybe the AC difference between current p99 and the box I was using is truly substantial and you can face tank stuff on here that I couldn't there, but I just don't see traditional fear kiting and ever better snares getting set aside in favor of taking hits. Not to mention root rotting prior to Velious.

Good luck with your project and I hope you have better results than I did when playing with the idea of melee necro. I will however continue to doubt its viability compared to "regular" play by lazy necromancers.

[Ivory]

Originally Posted by M.J. [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

I just don't see this method working well on 44+ mobs or doing sustained dps better than a dot using necro once splurt is part of rotations, and unlike shamans spell swapping mid battle is something necros can do if they want to stack lower level dots. So your endgame spell lineup won't be as streamlined as say a shaman with torpor if you're truly trying to get your best DPS, and it will involve some spell scribing.

Well, depends what level range.... and what they are doing.

But let's crunch dem numbers!

A sitting necromancer at 50 gets 39 mana a tick sitting, and 21 standing (as a skeleton).

So, over 5 minutes, that's 1950 mana for the sitting, and 1050 for standing.

What can a necromancer do with 900 mana? Well, let's be generous and say they aren't nuking, but instead get their FULL dot damage (which won't really be happening much in a group, but let's say it).

Ignite blood is 250 mana, for a 1176 damage (over 21 ticks), the best dot you got at 50. Or, 4.7 damage per mana... so 900 x 4.7 = 4230 damage!

Melee damage, over 5 minutes, is 1 swing per 1.5 seconds (it's actually more like 1 swing per second with a haste, but let's give melee a disadvantage). And let's take out proc weapons or specialized target hunting (like a necro proccing for 585 is going to be too strong). Over 5 minutes, that's 200 swings.

So, let's do a rod of annihilation. 40/40....on a necro that will be hitting up to 80, but let's not go too bananas here, let's just say it's 40 on average.

That's 8000 damage.....

BUT we haven't figured in procs!

Vampiric embrace is 62 damage at level 50... and the proc rate per minute is dex / 170 + 0.5.... so with 170 dex, you get 1.5 procs per minute. ((if you go up to 255 dex, your PPM goes to 2... which over 5 minutes, means you get 10 procs over 5 minutes about))

But at the low 160 dex, you have 7.5 proc of 62 damage ....which is 465 damage, JUST from procs of vampiric embrace (this proc rate is the same for the undead legions staff, which is 585 damage x 7.5....or 4387 damage JUST from that staffs procs over 5 minutes). For reference, the nuke necros have is a 210 mana damage spell that does 500 damage.... so vampiric embrace alone is giving you about a free nuke.

So, that takes the total melee damage over 5 minutes to 8465 damage....compared to a FULL damage dot necro to 4230..... less than half....

.......

Now soloing is another consideration, it isn't pure damage... it's also keeping the pet alive. If your pet can easily tank something, then it isn't a problem. But if you are fighting in a dungeon and you can't fear the target around... and your pet can't stomp its way through it.... then, what can you do? Heal your pet a bit, sure.... but it isn't enough, you run into a hard wall where you are racing to kill the target before it kills your pet (then you).

With a melee necro, you stay competitive with damage (actually doing more damage for the same amount of mana you'd get by medding)... BUT you are using your superior self-healing to heal off as much damage as you need till you are out of mana. You don't die until you are out (unlike a pet that will die sooner than that).

For something hitting hard enough that you can't stay face tanking it non stop, you can do an in and out strategy....meleeing a bit, setting up your lifetap dots... but basically acting more as a buffer for your pet. Letting it tank a bit, then stepping in and taking off some pressure (while healing it), and then backing up again to let it tank more with it's health while you heal.

Basically a trade back and forth which can let you face MUCH stronger things than you can elsewise.

I actually tested this with another necromancer in sky. We both were taking turns trying to solo one of the island 1 faeries... and my in and out strategy was able to take it down twice as far as they were before they had to FD it off.

.......

So.... overall, in every way, meleeing is stronger as a necromancer (if you build it right). If you don't... it just won't work... you will get max hit each hit and be just a giant mana-drain. That's why AC is so critical, it slows the rate of HP loss to something more manageable in terms of mana-burn to compensate.

[pivo]

Originally Posted by Ivory [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

So.... overall, in every way, meleeing is stronger as a necromancer (if you build it right). If you don't... it just won't work... you will get max hit each hit and be just a giant mana-drain. That's why AC is so critical, it slows the rate of HP loss to something more manageable in terms of mana-burn to compensate.

Few questions from clueless new to the game player. I have Necro and I don't play it properly most of the time. I only know about fear kitting so far (Treants in SK)

It is a Gnome, but I put most points into INT, I'm assuming I can't now compensate with some cheap DEX items (rings, earrings, bracelets...etc...) to try Bone Knight strategy? I would have to re-roll, right?

Another question, you said: "if you build it right" So what else I should do, if I re-roll. Should rings, earrings and other stuff (speaking low levels 10-20-30) be all DEX based or what combo should I be getting? Mind you, I don't even know if there are such things as DEX rings... I bought only INT items for my Necro and Magician so far. So if you can be here a little bit more specific (like you were with the weapons) for totally clueless noob player, I would really appreciate it [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.] As a very bad, slow, clumsy player I wouldn't mind to try out even easier toon [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.] Norath God knows I need it lol (I have a record in # of dying on Green, just can't prove it) [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Another point in having Bone Knight. I almost died yesterday, since I didn't notice my target was my pet, not Treant. I wasted most of my mana by the time I realised what I was doing. If I would mele Treant, that wouldn't have happen! I can see the benefits already lmao!

[Zoolander]

very interesting read!

BUT:

what about endgame raiding ? how does this work there?

iam now thinking about to reroll with all points into DEX but above is holding me back doing so!

[Ivory]

Originally Posted by Zoolander [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

very interesting read!

BUT:

what about endgame raiding ? how does this work there?

iam now thinking about to reroll with all points into DEX but above is holding me back doing so!

Oh ho! I'm in the most toppest of top endgame raiding guilds! Seal Team!

At any time a bone knight can be the same as a normal necromancer if they want to "just" use their spells.

But, often I do melee in raiding, because with my staff I outDPS everyone with undead targets (and once i get the rod of annihilation, I think I'll stay top / near the top in DPS into kunark).

The last raid I went to (fire giants) me and a paladin went ahead of everyone and duoed one of the giants to test our might (no fear kiting).

We were both trading back and forth on tanking, and then when we both got worn out, we stepped back and the pet took over tanking while we rested a minute and then got back into the fight.

Here are some parses from hate... ((for reference, Snagasson is a rogue))

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[Noselacri]

Originally Posted by Ivory [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Well, depends what level range.... and what they are doing.
Melee damage, over 5 minutes, is 1 swing per 1.5 seconds (it's actually more like 1 swing per second with a haste, but let's give melee a disadvantage). And let's take out proc weapons or specialized target hunting (like a necro proccing for 585 is going to be too strong). Over 5 minutes, that's 200 swings.

So, let's do a rod of annihilation. 40/40....on a necro that will be hitting up to 80, but let's not go too bananas here, let's just say it's 40 on average.

That's 8000 damage.....

BUT we haven't figured in procs!

Vampiric embrace is 62 damage at level 50... and the proc rate per minute is dex / 170 + 0.5.... so with 170 dex, you get 1.5 procs per minute. ((if you go up to 255 dex, your PPM goes to 2... which over 5 minutes, means you get 10 procs over 5 minutes about))

But at the low 160 dex, you have 7.5 proc of 62 damage ....which is 465 damage, JUST from procs of vampiric embrace (this proc rate is the same for the undead legions staff, which is 585 damage x 7.5....or 4387 damage JUST from that staffs procs over 5 minutes). For reference, the nuke necros have is a 210 mana damage spell that does 500 damage.... so vampiric embrace alone is giving you about a free nuke.

So, that takes the total melee damage over 5 minutes to 8465 damage....compared to a FULL damage dot necro to 4230..... less than half....

Isn't it really optimistic to assume that you'll do 40 damage per swing on average? Quite a lot of them will miss, necros cap their weapon skills at 110. I'd be surprised if you land even half of your attacks, and many of those will be for minimal damage.

And how are you getting a 40 delay weapon down to 1 or 1.5 seconds? Even 100% haste would result in an effective delay of 20.

These numbers just don't seem to add up.

[Ivory]

Originally Posted by Noselacri [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Isn't it really optimistic to assume that you'll do 40 damage per swing on average? Quite a lot of them will miss, necros cap their weapon skills at 110. I'd be surprised if you land even half of your attacks, and many of those will be for minimal damage.

And how are you getting a 40 delay weapon down to 1 or 1.5 seconds? Even 100% haste would result in an effective delay of 20.

These numbers just don't seem to add up.

Necro melee isn't THAT bad. I was just battling a bunch of ice giants with melee... and with a 9 damage weapon, I was regularly hitting for 18 - 22ish. So with a 40 damage weapon, hitting for around 80 - 100 is going to be more typical, though with misses 40 is safer to calculate from.

The attack speed were just a random thing, but at level 60 you have a haste cap of 100% (with a haste buff + item you are there).

New (Hasted) Delay = Delay/(1+Haste)

So really it would be at 2 seconds per swing with the rod. Which is 150 attacks over 5 minutes... which doesn't effect the proc damage (since it's per minute based in general), but brings the melee damage down to 40 x 150 = 6000 + 465.... which is still 6465 damage compared to a dotting necro getting FULL damage of 4230.

BUT again, that damage is at 4.7 DPM....assuming you get FULL damage from all of your dots over 5 minutes.

It's still so far from where a melee necro gets (and we don't really know the exact amount, since there is some wiggle room for that necro melee to be even higher... or lower, if they miss a ton, but I don't really notice THAT much missing).

Quite a lot of them will miss, necros cap their weapon skills at 110.

Yup, necros weapon skills are lower, but that isn't make or break. Especially since you can compensate some for attack skill with strength. So 1 strength can make up for 1 weapon skill (and there is a lot of room to boost that, even with the level 60 kunark build, the strength is sitting at just 141... so if going full DPS in a group, grab a strength buff of 68 from a shaman.

Let alone the more mysterious finding that higher strength will increase your max damage hits... which actually might explain why I was seeing hits for 50 with my 20 damage staff, since casters don't get the main hand bonus damage... so it was just coming from my 101 strength right now? Hmmm, that might make melee even more effective than I thought with more focus on strength.

I'm reading it now, and it looks like your MOD bonus is

(Offensive skill + STR) / 100

For necromancer, they cap at 140 offense

So

(140 + 250) / 100 = 3.9

Which means with a 40 damage weapon, you will have a max hit of 156 (if you get up to 250 str).

With a more modest 140 str

(140 + 140) / 100 = 2.8

or 112 damage.....

Hmmm, I wonder if going heavier into strength would be more worth it for a bone knight? Some weapons are just too strong to ignore their procs (the undead legions and then a couple velious ones).... but maybe a more balanced approach to dex and str would be good.

So, why don't we hear about more casters meleeing? There is just a strange mentality around it (even though the numbers seem to be quite fine). What caster is focusing on their STR any?? Let alone getting a haste item or even bothering to keep their skills up?

Even lower level you don't see casters or clerics meleeing (even though their weapon / offensive skills haven't dropped off yet, making them as good at melee as a knight class.... with necromancers vampiric embrace making them BETTER melees than knights).

Anyhow, build wise, I think switching out the earrings and rings and maybe shoulder / back for more strength... and then shaman buff + siphon would be enough to take strength up towards 250ish (while still having high dex).

Being able to hit for almost 160 sure would be something though!!!!

Heck, let's calculate the level 60 damage hitting at 2/3rds of your hits at about 3/4ths of your max hit.

Which is about 80 damage per hit (if you put in the misses as just reduction in damage, so 160 x 0.75 x 0.66 = 80).... for 150 hits... that's 12,000 damage!!! From melee damage alone (again, still about 500 damage from procs added on there too).... with the possibility of going higher if you are fully melee buffed or lower the AC of the target.

Compared to a caster necro.... getting that same 900ish mana from medding... and turning it into dots.... even level 50+ dots aren't giving you better than 4.7 damage per mana...... so still sitting at about 4230 damage (maybe they can cast a tiny bit more with their increase of 2 mana per tick from meditating......of 50 ticks over 5 minutes... or 100 extra mana..... so, 470 extra damage than they had at 50?)

It's just night and day in terms of the potential damage. Even if you cut the damage of melee by HALF, it STILL blows the medding necro out of the water.

......

I dunno, the more I look at the numbers, the more bananas meleeing seems to be at higher levels with a proper build and some key high end items.

But don't think you NEED the rod of annihilation either. Because a 1:1 ratio weapon for a caster isn't THAT crazy. Especially once velious hits you can get velium brawl sticks and go to town.

Where does it ULTIMATELY all end up? Well.... the most amazing, top tier bone weapon of all time... is this...

https://wiki.project1999.com/Staff_of_the_Silent_Star

15/18... procs a 400 DD with -300 fire resist checks.......

Now THAT is the ultimate weapon of DPS in melee for a bone knight. Combining the procs with the raw melees.... so amazins.

[Ghrel Moey]

Hey all, after reading this thread I decided it would be fun to gear up a Bone Knight build and see how it worked. Before I go into my observations and questions, here are my stats (Currently at Level 9):

Race: Gnome
HP: 358 (I am wearing (2) 5/55 rings
AC: 286 (I have a few higher end pieces like Grave Sandals, Cloak of Shadows, Roykl's Channelleing Crystal)
STR: 75
DEX: 170
Weapons: Crookstinger, Smoldering Brand

I found levels 1-8 to be a breeze; so much that I didn't even need a pet. However, this was likely due to being geared up.

At level 9 my experience changed; when fighting blues, I can tank fine. Even or Yellow is problematic - I find I am mashing the Lifespike button more than I anticipated. Vampiric Embrace seems to proc less than my weapons do. I'm spending a lot of time bandaging and resting.

Am I doing something wrong? Or is it at Level 12, once we have our first Leach spell, that things get better?

thanks!!

[Ghrel Moey]

I hit 12 and got Leach - and it was a game changer. NOW I see the power this setup can have. Also - get a Smoldering Brand for 1HB of you can afford it. It's worth it.

[Xer0]

Originally Posted by Ivory [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

I actually tested this with another necromancer in sky. We both were taking turns trying to solo one of the island 1 faeries... and my in and out strategy was able to take it down twice as far as they were before they had to FD it off.

.......

it's 2021, where's the video evidence?